Re: master 18b680cfd1: Fix bug#52467 by adding a new custom variable 'display-comint-buffer-action'

[martin rudalics]

> I cannot imagine a situation where I would want to use the same window
> (i.e., show the shell buffer in the window from which I called shell).

Neither can I.  But in your OP your only concern was

  When I already have a window with shell, this patch creates a second
  such window.

That's what my patch tried to fix.

> IIUC, your patch will use the current window in some circumstances,

It will use it unless the shell buffer is already shown in a window on
the same frame.

> and, since you want to use `display-buffer-reuseor-same-window' in
> `shell'-like functions, I will not be able to avoid that.

That's an exaggeration.  You can always work around this problem via
'display-buffer-alist'.

> I would much prefer that we use `pop-to-buffer' or `display-buffer'
> everywhere (deprecating all those `pop-to-buffer-*' functions)

I might agree.  But we cannot simply convert everything that used
'switch-to-buffer' once (or still uses it) to use 'pop-to-buffer'
instead.  The greatest problem the 'display-buffer-alist' functionality
had to deal with was to leave the default behavior unchanged while
adding enough facilities so users could change the behavior to their
like.  That's also why I'd prefer to revert the original change and
think about a better solution we can all live with for Emacs 29.

> and let the _users_ decide how to display _all_ buffers using the standard
> `display-buffer-alist' functionality.

Deciding is not sufficient.  Users have to customize it and you should
have now noticed by yourself that dealing with 'display-buffer-alist' is
not entirely trivial.

martin